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How charging offers in retail can be used to effectively increase sales
Which factors influence the decision of customers for or against shopping in a retail store? In addition to access, parking facilities also play an important role. With the increasing penetration of electric cars Retailers with their own parking facilities right at the store can make even more arguments for shopping in their own shop.
A recent study found that 58% of all electric car drivers like to charge their e-car while doing their shopping. Many larger retail chains, such as ALDI, LIDL, MediaMarkt and Co., are already offering charging points directly at the point of sale and are thus making their retail store more attractive for the high-spending clientele of electric vehicles.
But “just” building charging infrastructure near the retail store is not enough.
The key: Integrating the charging offer into your own retailer app
In order to enable charging at charging points in retail store parking lots, retailers usually rely on offers from third-party providers — so-called EMPs. Customers therefore charge with the charging card or app from another provider and are therefore not accessible to retailers.
The key to making optimal use of the charging infrastructure in your own parking lot for marketing purposes is to integrate a charging offer directly into your own app. In this way, charging offers can be effectively used to increase sales in the store.
- Expanding the customer base through a map system
Most retailers with their own app already use a card system to display branches. By expanding this information, Branches with Existing Charging Infrastructure will be more attractive for e-car owners and therefore preferred for shopping.
In addition, these offers can expand the app's user base, which provides further marketing opportunities. With incentives or personalized messaging, (new) customers can be addressed directly and encouraged to visit the retail store.
- Charging offer for higher recognition value and growing brand loyalty
By integrating their own charging solution into the retailer's own existing app, customers get a stringent and seamless experience directly with the retailer: From parking, to charging, to shopping — all within the provider's CI. The result: growing brand loyalty and a higher recognition value.
- Loyalty and discount campaigns for growing interaction rates
Loyalty programs, such as points systems or promotions for registered users, as well as discount campaigns, are a major advantage of having your own retail apps. They regularly encourage customers to interact with the app and visit the markets.
Charging offers in your own app not only increase interaction rates with the app, but also creates countless other opportunities for loyalty and discount campaigns, especially for electric mobility with buying power.
Incentives, such as discounts on battery charging or free kilowatt hours for certain purchase amounts, are just as possible as crediting charged energy and discounts when shopping. The opportunities for marketers are almost limitless.
- Management of slumps and peak hours
When charging options are offered in their own app, retailers benefit from maximum capacity to use the charging offers to increase their own sales.
Even at a time when fewer customers are shopping in the stores, there are costs for retailers — for example due to the number of employees who are on site. With charging offers in the app, customer flows can be influenced, for example, by retailers inducing the charging of e-cars at retail stores at certain advantageous times and thus bringing customers to retail stores.
- Open up further touchpoints with customers with your own charging tariff
They still exist at some locations: gas station supermarkets. In addition to their range of goods, shop owners also sell fuel under their own brand. A convenient solution for car drivers to fill their tank in addition to doing their weekly shopping. It is similar with the offer of Charging stations For electric cars - with the difference that charging takes place via third-party providers. A break that can be reversed by integrating the charging option into the retail app.
It will be even more advantageous for retailers to offer their own charging tariff under their own brand for public charging of e-cars — as has become established in the mobile communications sector, for example. Retailers are not only opening up another channel to generate sales, they also provide customers with a comprehensive opportunity to interact with the brand outside of shopping and to satisfy another basic need (mobility) in addition to shopping.
Integrate charging offers into the retail app — here's how
As we can see, there are many good reasons to integrate charging offers for retail infrastructure into your own app. But - how does that actually work?
With the Charge SDK, Elvah has created an easy way to integrate charging offers into retailers' retail app.
SDK means “software development kit.” This is an application that can be integrated directly into the retail app out of the box - simply, quickly and with its own CI. Comprehensive development resources are not required.
This allows retailers to get the most out of their charging infrastructure with little effort. And best of all: With our charging solutions, the electric mobility market can be opened up without having to build up your own know-how in important topics, such as charging processes, billing and taxation. With the Charge SDK, Elvah offers a complete solution for the entire charging range.
For more information about the Charge SDK, please contact the Elvah team: info@elvah.de